Under the Skin, or, How We Had to Destroy History to Replicate It

 Often, a building is most interesting, reveals its truest self, not when it's completed, but when it's under construction.

Such is the case with The Lake, at Wells and Superior, a private club that Crain's Chicago Business's John Schroyer reports is scheduled to open this fall.

It's the site of two historic Chicago buildings, constructed just after the Great Fire of 1871, that the Landmarks Commission deigned not to protect, ostensibly because they had been substantially altered from their initial design. 720 North Wells was built in 1872 by German immigrant and brewer Conrad Seipp, a saloon on the ground floor, offices on the second, a Swedish social hall on the third. A cast iron arcade graced the Wells Street side.  (Siepp died in 1890, the Depression killed off the brewery, and a third-generation offspring has now bought back the name and restarted the brewery.)

photo courtesy Jordan Mozer

As Wells evolved into a trendy street of art galleries and restaurants that came to known as River North, 720 opened as the nightclub Cairo in 1988, to a glam redesign by Jordan Mozer that included a zigzag bar, gold walls and coal shafts converted into intimate two-person nooks. Chicago writer Achy Obeys wrote how "Snakes of sweaty people crawled up and down the labyrinth stairs; the elevator was a hot box of bodies."  Including mine, when I was under the influence of a free spirit who set me bar-hopping just for privilege of tagging along.

Cairo was hot, hot, hot, and then, in the way of all things, not.  It became, for a time, Club 720.  Eventually, Chicago sommelier Alpana Singh and her partners took over it in 2012 and remade it into The Boarding House, a restaurant Chicago Magazine's Jeff Ruby labeled a "glitz-o-rama" as he drooled over the dishes offered up by Quebec chef Christian Gosselin.  The place had "the unmistakable sparkle and swagger of an eventual Chicago classic."  And then, not.  In 2018, months after Singh had sold off her stake, The Boarding House closed, owing their landlord $117,000 in back rent.

And there 720 stood, empty and decaying for the next seven years, the 9,000 wineglasses that made up the chandelier over the bar still glinting faintly through the darkened windows, right up until the building was smashed to dust the summer of 2024.

720, and its companion 1870's building on Superior that was home to a Jets Pizza, were acquired in 2019 for $4,300,000.  Despite the efforts of Preservation Chicago, a demolition permit was issued.

The late classicist architect Robert A.M. Stern was enlisted to design, with GREC architects, a new building to house The Lake, an exclusive social club that's the creation of Krehbiel family heir Liam Krehbiel, head of Topograhy, described as "an early-stage hospitality company developing and operating a collection of luxurious hotels and clubs."

Topography was founded in Chicago in 2021.  It began when Liam's billionaire dad Fred Krehbiel of Molex fame bought a historic Irish estate with a 19th century manor house and, over a decade, restored and expanded it into the luxury Ballyfin resort, which opened in 2011 and later served as a honeymoon outpost for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.  Molex was sold to the infamous Koch Brothers in 2015.  After Fred died in 2021, Liam took over Ballyfin and founded Topography.  Shortly after, Topography acquired the 137 acre Wisconsin campus of the former George Williams College, near the Yerkes Observatory, and is in the process of transforming it into The Preserve at Williams Bay, a 68-key ultra-luxury resort with a 90-acre conservation easement on a portion of the golf course, hotel rooms in the lodge plus free-standing cottages.

For something claiming to be opening in September, there's little information out there on the The Lake.  If you have to ask, you're not in their target group?  Nuveen Green Capital talks about a "$27,500,000 financing package" for an upscale yet unpretentious members only destination." 

Just last month, The Lake, which describes itself on Linkedin as "For the discerningly fun" began posting for positions such as Executive Chef and Director of Food and Beverages.  Three days ago, they added Restaurant Manager and Sous Chef. "The club will offer three distinct restaurants, including a French-inspired brasserie, a British American restaurant, and an Italian trattoria... two cocktail bars, a members' wine cellar, a roof terrace, three guest rooms, and a small spa."

There's no small irony in Nuveen describing The Lake as designed to "foster community while preserving the neighborhood's rich architectural history" where "preserving" meant destroying actual historic buildings for a Disneyfied replica.  And that's why the current state is no fascinating.  You should take a look, although since I took these pictures over a week ago, and the applique facade may already be going up.

Right now, The Lake has the look of a medieval battlement, heavy walls of concrete block, opaque embrasure-like windows with plastic fill and blue-tape outlines.  Still awaiting its fancy, civilizing cover, it can be seen for what it really is under the skin.  Not a fair analogy, to be sure - the current incarnation is domestic, polite, and welcoming to all those with the cash - but I realized what it reminds me of is those hulking armories 19th century millionaires built to protect themselves from the feared, if imaginary, attacks of the lower classes.  Subtext.

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